Supernovas
by WildCA7
Summary: At some point in life, there is going to be a moment when one just knows it's going to be a moment that comes back to haunt. For Akashi, he doesn't think things are that specific. For Akashi, he thinks Aida Riko is the moment. [May contain slight canon-divergence, focuses on what happens after high school]


Author's Note: Hi! This is my first story which I did as a sort of writing practice. It would mean a lot to me if any of you guys would leave a comment and tell me how I did. Personally, I don't really ship Akashi and Riko that much but I do like both their characters and think that if they interacted more in canon their dynamic would have been really interesting. This may not be that accurate to the canon-verse but I will try my best! Enjoy!

He had forgotten who exactly it was that told him girls were made of sugar and spice and everything nice.

The first time he saw her, she was fire, ashes, and battle cries.

It was during one of Seirin's matches against the school of another member of the Generation of Miracles. He had forgotten who it was, but he does remember going there to take a look at the match. He wouldn't call it scouting per se, his mindset then believed there was no way in Heaven or the Seven Hells that anyone could beat Rakuzan. His motivation then had been pure curiosity. He had heard _quite a bit_ about Tetsuya's new "light". It was only natural he should want to see just what exactly had gotten everybody all riled up about a small school that definitely had never been known for its basketball team.

The match had been entertaining enough for him, but not mind-blowing. When he had spared a glance at the bench players of Seirin, there she was with them. A short, thin-looking girl in a student uniform was hollering at the herd of boys who were all easily taller and stronger than her. _What?_ He knew some managers could get quite passionate during games but this was something else altogether.

Only later did he learn that the girl was, in fact, the coach of Seirin. Now Akashi had seen his fair share of pretty girls; even more so than the regular high school boy since his father insisted on his "bonding" with the daughters of famous businessmen who were potentially worthy of the Akashi name. Aida Riko was not pretty. At least, not in the conventional sense. This was something he noticed the moment his eyes swept over her. She was the picture of a supernova, burning bright with the colors of a thousand sunsets that didn't care whether or not they were blinding. He had recognized the look in her eyes. He had seen it way too many times in the past when it had shone through the eyes of his teammates back when they still played for Teiko. The look in her eyes spoke of challenges, as if daring the world to not notice her, to put her down and watch as she rises from the ashes. She could have stood on a battlefield and still looked perfectly in-place.

Akashi was never someone who would spend his time pondering whether "instincts" were a legit thing or not, but he could almost swear at that moment, something in him screamed at him to stay the hell away from the pair of rich brown eyes. He left the match early after that.

It wasn't love at first sight. Far from it. He didn't even bother to ask anyone for her name. Names meant connection. He didn't even think about her after he returned to Kyoto. But he could feel she was always kind of there, at the edge of his mind and blurring in and out of his occasional thoughts of Seirin's team and Tetsuya. By the time he was starting to have trouble placing her face, he was more than happy. He had never really thought about her as a person anyway, only as a face that seemed to have helped buffet Tetsuya to a place where he might have a chance of meeting him on the basketball court officially. But that was just it. He had never "thought" about anyone who wasn't going to pose as an opponent. So what made her so different? He decided it wasn't worth his time to find out. It was pointless and, frankly, not rational at all.

The next time she popped up was when the Rakuzan team was seen poring over a basketball magazine in the changing rooms. Some reporter had interviewed the Seirin team in light of its quick rise. He spared the article a minimum amount of attention and chose not to dwell on the fact that he had scanned the article for any mentions of the Seirin coach. Against his better judgment, (which he vowed would never happen again) he had looked up the history of Seirin's basketball team and came up with frighteningly little. It would seem the third years on the team were in fact the first members to ever be on a Seirin basketball team. He read that they didn't do so well their first time around. Then they started doing better slightly before Tetsuya even showed up. It didn't take him very long to take a guess at what the change was. _So how long has she coached them? How long did she have to make them into something that could compete?_ If anyone had dared to ask, he would've replied he also looked for Tetsuya and -what was his name again?- Taiga. It was perfectly normal for him to want to know more about a potential adversary so why did he feel like such a creep? The article itself was a bit of a disappointment though. Akashi had almost snorted at how big a cliche the reporter had written. The reporter had started off the article by describing a small group of talented but looked-down boys, then writing about how they bested the odds against them with their hard work and talent. They did have hard work and some talent, he'll give them that. But he was pretty sure there was another big factor involved. He didn't see her name until the very last paragraph where the writer briefly mentions they were "supported on the side by a female student of Seirin High School by the name of Aida Riko".

So that was her name. Surprisingly simple. It didn't sound fancy or even remotely similar to the name a celebrity might own. It sounded like the name of someone who might be an actual living, breathing person right next to you on the bus, and that bothered him. Flashes of her face flitted across his mind unbidden. He shook his head. As the captain of the best team in Japan, he didn't need any unnecessary distractions. Victory was everything and failure inexcusable. Any trivial curiosity was simply not allowed to harbor his mind. That was that.

He had casted the magazine aside then and ordered his teammates to begin running laps. The reporter was an idiot. End of story. His lips twisted in a sardonic smile when he thought about what a minor role she was placed in the article. _A sidelines female support._ What a joke. Anyone with eyes could tell that without her, it didn't matter how many Tetsuyas or Taigas Seirin had, they would still be where they started, a nobody-team. So what if he might've doubled Hayama's training after he heard Hayama say he hoped the Seirin coach was cute? It was nobody's business.

Akashi was never (and likely never will be) very interested in the topic of poetry and pretty words. It was quite useless if you asked him, stuff that Kise would probably be a bit more into. But if you also asked him what could've symbolized failure, he would've answered right then that failure was like a wilted flower, vile, rotten, and in stark contrast with what it could've been. He wasn't completely immune to the loss, contrary to his serene expression. It still felt as if someone had taken a sucker punch to his gut. Granted, Kuroko and Kagami (yes, he is able to remember his name quite clearly now) completely deserved the victory. After all, years of watching different players and being a captain allowed him see when players gave a game their all and then some. The final match with Seirin had been… eventful to say in the least. He was shocked to find he wasn't exactly "unhappy". He just felt a heavy sense of resolution, as if something he had been waiting to drop for his whole life finally did. Of course, that may have to do with the fact that he had somehow managed to regain more of his Teiko persona during the match. It was… refreshing. He knew not what his father would say about him losing the match but he would worry about that later. Just as he was turning to leave, he saw from the corner of his eye a petite figure with caramel brown hair run onto the court. _Aida Riko._ He watched as the big guy (Kiyoshi, he thought his name was) pick her up and spin her around as if she weighed nothing. _Big mistake._ She was laughing and smiling and, gods above, it was _blinding_. He had seen her either fix an opposing team with focused, analytical stares, or cheer and yell at her team with an aura that spat flames. He'd go as far as to say he may have imagined what she would look like dishing out killer training plans to her team, but he had never, not once, imagined her smiling. Maybe that part of him deep down, the part that had known when he first saw her that he would need to stay away, had also sensed just how dangerous an endeavor like that would be. _Look away._

During the match, he had only allowed himself to be "aware" that she was there on the benches with the rest of the Seirin team, nothing more. He had wondered what she saw when looking at him play. He had quickly squashed down whatever little sense of anticipation he might've felt when he saw her watch him during the game. _You don't even know her and it doesn't matter._ He told himself that again and again, almost like a mantra. Now that the final match was over, his brain was slowly coming down from its hyper-focused mode and wandering into some of the braver corners of his mind. Such as wondering if Aida Riko would ever be curious about Kuroko's former teammates from Teiko… But Akashi was nothing if not disciplined, something his father had drilled into him early on. He left the gymnasium with his team without speaking a single word or sparing an extra glance at the Seirin coach. He boxed up whatever weird curiosity or fascination this was and buried it at the very back of his mind, hopefully to never be retrieved. He knew he would have to avoid her at all costs. He had let his guard down before and it never should have gotten this far, this weird attention he keeps paying this girl he knew personally nothing of. He vowed to stay as far as physically and mentally possible from Aida Riko.

He left her in the memories he had labeled as pre-Winter-Cup. Things seemed to settle back into their rhythm and Aida Riko didn't crop up in his life again for a while. Whenever he so much as thinks about something related to Seirin, he would quickly change his train of thought. It worked for a while, too. Until he got a call from Kuroko asking him if he wanted to play on a team with the rest of the Generation of Miracles again. And Kagami, of course. He realized he wanted to, more than he ever he would. Sure, he still practiced with Hayama, Mibuchi, and the rest of the Rakuzan team, but there was something about playing with his old team that always set his blood on fire. Plus, he had heard of the team Jabberwock, and hd wanted greatly to give them a piece of his mind. As a joke, he said, "So you have the team members all sorted out, huh? Do you also happen to have a coach up your sleeve?" Kuroko had answered, in his usual calm, toneless vice, "Yes. Coach's father, Aida Kagetora, has volunteered to do it. Of course, Coach will also be helping him. Momoi-san offered to help, too." He didn't even have to guess to know who he was talking about. Akashi could've sworn he heard something shatter the second Kuroko mentioned "Coach". As much as he tried not to be dramatic, he still couldn't help but wonder if the death of worlds that religions loved to talk about sounded the same as well.

-To be continued-

Author's Note: Please leave a comment :)


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